After becoming an overnight celebrity thanks to her appearance on Tiger King earlier this year, Carole Baskin finally gave her first press interview with a stop on what she thought The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. Except it wasn’t The Tonight Show and Fallon wasn’t involved in any shape, way, or form. As The Tonight Show has started filming shows remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic, YouTube pranksters Josh Pieters and Archie Manners posed as Tonight Show producers and invited Baskin on the show.
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After she accepted, the YouTubers used footage from previous Fallon-centric footage to string together a complete interview that appeared seamless. In an interview with Insider, Pieters says the duo pulled the prank just to prove what’s possible with doing this content-creation remotely.
“Here’s a chance where we could perhaps interview some high level talent because we are going under the guise of being a really famous show,” Pieters told Insider. “And we thought, why don’t we take a shot in the dark and go for the most exclusive, hard to reach person in the world, with absolutely no hope of it working?”
Once Tiger King became a screaming sensation for Netflix, the two quickly sent an e-mail to Baskin requesting an interview. Enough time passed the two had forgotten all about the request — then, Baskin herself reached out to accept the interview, thinking the YouTubers production company was handling the production for Fallon remotely.
Pieters tells Insider the two never expected the prank — or social experiment, as they call it — to work. But, the YouTuber says, they never intentionally try to lie to people.
“I think we always we always try to, not only from a creative point of view, but also from a slightly moral point of view, not completely dupe someone by breaking the law or doing something really wrong,” Pieters said in a separate interview. “We always try to give people a bit of a chance.”
In the case you’re one of the few to not have seen Tiger King, Netflix’s synopsis for the true-crime series can be found below:
“Among the eccentrics and cult personalities in the stranger-than-fiction world of big cat owners, few stand out more than Joe Exotic, a mulleted, gun-toting polygamist and country western singer who presides over an Oklahoma roadside zoo. Charismatic but misguided, Joe and an unbelievable cast of characters including drug kingpins, conmen, and cult leaders all share a passion for big cats, and the status and attention their dangerous menageries garner. But things take a dark turn when Carole Baskin, an animal activist and owner of a big cat sanctuary, threatens to put them out of business, stoking a rivalry that eventually leads to Joe’s arrest for a murder-for-hire plot, and reveals a twisted tale where the only thing more dangerous than a big cat is its owner.”
